


Would You Love Me The Same 'Cause I Wouldn't.

by MOGICORE



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: But he likes his members more, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Implied OT8 Relationship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, Mingi really likes doing hair and makeup, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Self-Discovery, Song Mingi is Whipped, Song Mingi-centric, and oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:29:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MOGICORE/pseuds/MOGICORE
Summary: The leader looks up at him and smiles.Mingi stops himself from shrinking back because, yeah, they must have all collectively agreed to get more attractive and not tell him about it. “Of course it is. Look, your queerness is not dependent on whether people know or not. Coming out isn’t a rite of passage or some shit that magically validates your queerness. You’re already so fucking valid, Mingi. All of us are. It’s not a rule that you have to come out, and it’s not something you absolutely have to adhere to just because everyone else is doing it.”
Relationships: ATEEZ Ensemble/Everyone, Everyone/Everyone, Kang Yeosang/Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong/Song Mingi, Song Mingi/Everyone
Comments: 18
Kudos: 205





	Would You Love Me The Same 'Cause I Wouldn't.

Before KQ Entertainment, and even far before Maroo Entertainment, Mingi was just Mingi. He was the Mingi who was dorky and awkward with limbs too long for his thin body, the Mingi who sat alone in the cafeteria with his best friend and wrote raps about orange juice. Most importantly, he was the Mingi who, one day, wanted to perform with people who’d mean the world to him; the Mingi who wanted to feel the stage lights burning his skin and blinding him, and feel his clothes clinging to his skin, damp with sweat.

Something people often forgot was that he hadn’t had enough time to prepare himself for the life he’d idealized and wanted for so long. One day, he was five, playing on the playground, and then the next day, he woke up almost an adult getting ready to audition at Maroo Entertainment, and his parents couldn’t have prepared him for this as hard as they tried to. His family wasn’t perfect. It was always just him, mom, and dad. More than often, it was just him and his mom. They had enough money to live well in Seoul; they sent him to a respectable school, kept him fed and clothed, and had enough left over to give him allowance sometimes.

Other kids had bullied him at school, but he didn’t let it get to him. There wasn’t a single school in all the world, he’d told himself, where the beanpole in glasses with an enormous mouth and crooked teeth doesn’t get bullied. Mingi hadn’t been stupid, and he’d passed all his classes with flying colours. While never athletic enough to be anyone’s first pick in gym class, he wasn’t weak enough to be someone’s last pick either. Mingi wasn’t an asset, but he wasn’t so bad to have on the team either. And he had some friends, not ones he’d spend time with outside of school, but friends all the same. That changed in high school when he met Yunho.

Yunho’s family was more well-off than Mingi’s but he hadn’t been spoiled. He had a little brother and his parents had always been present in his life, both of them. He was tall and broad and all the girls wanted to be around him. Mingi admired him in a way he couldn’t describe. Part of Mingi wondered how or why they’d ever become friends, and what Yunho had seen in the scrawny kid sitting in the cafeteria’s corner. They’d become best friends, though, and before long, they’d had their life planned out together. They both had the same dream, and they both had a shot at achieving it.

Under Maroo Entertainment, he grows and matures. It’s not a wonderful experience, and he wants to give up more than he wants to succeed sometimes. The bullying doesn’t stop, only lessens. Under Maroo, Mingi becomes the Mingi who can dance like no one else and rap fast and easy like he’s working up a lather. He becomes the Mingi with a deep, raspy voice and long, pretty eyelashes that leave the girls giggling when he talks to them and jealous because they hadn’t been blessed like him (their words, not his). He becomes the Mingi who doesn’t need glasses anymore. He becomes the Mingi with a thin waist, broad shoulders, and wonderful proportions given to him from whatever gods there may be. Despite the acne and the scars it leaves behind, he becomes a confident person, a Mingi he can be proud of.

One of the biggest things Mingi learned was that it didn’t matter how good you were at something when you lived in a country where nearly everyone had the aptitude to become something and someone. Most kids were modelling before they hit the first grade and a lot of teenagers started modelling early on too. There were ten- and eleven-year-olds forming dance groups, some hoping to get scouted and have a future under a big company like SM Entertainment. If you stopped someone on the street and asked them to sing, chances were they could somewhat carry a tune. It didn’t matter how good Mingi was or how hard he worked to keep up or get ahead of everyone else if he didn’t have something unique to set him apart from the other trainees. He was just a sunfish trying to survive in a country full of people ready to eat him alive. Literally.

Mingi spends a long time thinking about it; what makes him different, what he has that could set him apart. He can dance, he can rap, he can produce, and he can write lyrics. None of those things make him special and he knows it because Jay Park, Lee Taeyong, and Min Yoongi can all do those things. Jay Park had been doing it probably since before Mingi even had the thought as a sperm cell to be an idol. His looks don’t set him apart either. Girls told him he had visuals like DK from Seventeen, Bobby from iKON, and sometimes, he even got J-Hope from BTS. It’s easy to find an idol with a body that looks good, it was kind of standard, so his isn’t something special.

Before long, he’s auditioning at KQ Entertainment. He’d liked Maroo. It wasn’t so bad after he got “pretty” but he didn’t see himself debuting there. KQ Entertainment was a relatively new company, small and fresh, with nothing to its name but two sub-labels and Heo Young Saeng. Perhaps in auditioning, Mingi’s dreaming got the best of him and he hoped he’d be able to help the company make a bigger name for itself even if he didn’t have something that made him unique.

The first time Mingi discovers something that makes him unique, he’s freshly nineteen by two months and fifteen days, ATEEZ had debuted the day before, and he was still stumbling over his words and blushing when Hongjoong so much as passed him by. How could he not? Hongjoong, though short, was a big person. He was intelligent and wise beyond his years; he was creative; he had a way of thinking that Mingi didn’t quite understand sometimes, and he was handsome enough to make Mingi feel insecure about his small eyes, pointy nose, and plump lips.

Hongjoong was KQ’s first trainee and Mingi looked up to him more than he’d ever looked up to anyone, even Jay Park. He’d waltzed into the building and straight to the vice-director, told him, “I want to be an idol who can write his own music.”, and the vice-director took him to Eden’s studio and asked him to teach him. Eden tried to get rid of him, thought he’d make Hongjoong give up on his dream just because he didn’t want to be his teacher. When Hongjoong first told Mingi the story, Mingi had told him that if Eden had told him to memorize 200 words about composing by the next day, he would have given up. That was what made Hongjoong different. Hongjoong went home and learnt every word, came back and recited them all like they were his own name.

He was only older than Mingi by a year and he’d taken everything in stride despite being a little less than average in certain talents when he came to the company and, unlike Mingi, he knew how to be an adult. He didn’t have to pretend to be older than he was or that he didn’t need his hand to be held like Mingi needed his to be.

Hongjoong’s not only smart enough to help Mingi in the studio when he can’t figure out why this one particular part of his song won’t work in his favour, but he’s smart in other ways too. He’d drilled it into their brains long before debut that it was okay to be vulnerable, that it was okay to be masculine but that it was also okay to feminine or both, and that before anything, he wanted them to be themselves. He’d taught them about American things, stuff they needed to know so they didn’t accidentally hurt someone and helped them with their English. Hongjoong was smart with people in a way Mingi couldn’t be, but needed to learn to be, because before they know it, they’ve debuted and it’s their first debut stage on M COUNTDOWN.

It’s this moment when Mingi realizes that he has something, one little thing, that makes him just a bit unique and something that makes him more different than he’s ever felt before (and he’d felt different since he’d met the other members of his group and noticed the way they reacted to the things he did). They’re backstage getting prepared to perform for live television. He’s exhausted and the others are too. Even their stylists are tired. Both ATEEZ and their staff were incredibly excited about their debut but after working hours and hours on end for months, their happiness was drowned out by the exhaustion and the way no one in their country was willing to take them seriously just because they were rookies from a small company.

It’s a lot of stress and pressure, to be good enough to get South Korea to acknowledge them and to be good enough so that international fans won’t abandon them. They all cope with the stress in different ways. Hongjoong locks himself up in his studio for hours, sometimes days, writing lyrics and working on new songs for them or reforming clothes for himself or other members. Seonghwa cooks and busies himself with cleaning, re-organizing, and then cleaning their dorm again. Yunho and San spend hours dancing together and don’t come home until Hongjoong is conscious enough to realize that he himself needs to go home. Yeosang joins them sometimes, but Mingi usually finds him alone, practicing his vocals for so long that he sounds hoarse the next day.

Wooyoung follows San around like he’s his shadow, staying close, and practicing his dancing with him and Yunho. Jongho, their youngest, spends his time with Yeosang, helping him with his vocals, which always left Mingi as the odd one out. Working in the studio for hours or dancing in the practice room for just as long only increased his stress because the self-deprecating thoughts crept in unless he danced hard enough to fog the mirrors. Seonghwa always scolded him when that happened, “ _You’re working too hard. You’re enough, Mingi. Take a break_.” Sometimes he trails after Yunho, but it seems like they’re not that close anymore these days. For the first time since before Maroo, he feels like he’s not good enough and for the first time since before he met Yunho, he feels alone.

Every time he has to watch Yeosang murdering his vocal cords or San stumbling into the dorm so achy, he’s nearly in tears, or Seonghwa stress cooking enough to feed the entire army, Mingi’s torn between wanting to give up, another thing he hadn’t felt since his time at Maroo, or working ten times harder so they don’t have to suffer anymore and he can see them all smile again.

But it isn’t all bad, and he’s grateful for that. Mingi wouldn’t have chosen to be with any other seven people or to debut in any other group. He loves the art he’s creating, and more than that, he loves his members. Mingi wants to work hard to make something with them that they can be proud of for years to come.

He takes up two things that relieve his stress, drawing and doing hair. It’s easy enough to borrow Hongjoong’s supplies as long as he asks, and it puts him at ease when he can leave colourful cards and pictures in places the members will find them to cheer them up a little. Doing hair had happened by mistake a month before debut. He didn’t know what had come over him, but he asked one of the stylist noonas if she’d teach him how to do hair like she does. She’d questioned him curiously, and he’d sputtered out some excuse about wanting to do his hair at home. Every day, after practice, he hurried down to meet her and work with her and another noona who let him practice on her. He wasn’t amazing, but he was decent enough to do his own hair when he felt like it.

On this day, October 25, there had been no time for Mingi to sit and make something nice for his members or to mess around with the few mannequin heads the stylists usually had lying around.

They’d been sitting around for hours, ready to go on, until all the free time they have creates a problem. Wooyoung and San, with less than fifteen minutes before they need to go on, decide to horseplay and end up ruining their hair and then Seonghwa and Yeosang’s when they try to break them up. Not to mention the wardrobe malfunction that happens out of nowhere.

It’s not an enormous deal, but it is because they can’t look like shit the day after they’ve debuted and disappoint everyone right off the bat and possibly sour their relationship with KQ. What sort of start to a group would that be?

So San and Wooyoung’s hair is a mess, Seonghwa’s shirt is torn at the shoulder seam and his hair is messed up too, Yunho’s makeup is a little smudged and his pants are torn right across his knee, and Yeosang’s hair is sticking up all over the place. The stress increases tenfold and the stylists get annoyed and snappy with them, which only makes Mingi want to cry. Hongjoong busies himself trying to help one noona mend Seonghwa’s shirt, but he keeps pricking his fingers because she jostles him and tells him to do it this way or that way while two other noonas try to do four heads of hair and Yunho’s makeup.

Mingi doesn’t want to stand around and be useless, especially not when there’s so little time. One of their usual stylists, the one who’d been teaching him, wasn’t here, and he takes a solid fifteen seconds to work up the courage to approach one of the other stylists, one he didn’t interact with often. She’s trying to do Wooyoung and Seonghwa’s hair all at once, so he motions to Wooyoung, who’s hair is in a significantly more tragic state, and asks, “Can I try?”

She gives him a funny look, lips pursing into a thin line, and Seonghwa and Hongjoong look at him too, expressions unreadable. Embarrassment bleeds through and he licks his lips, “I want to help.” He tries again, averting his eyes to his shoes. “San’s hair still needs to be done and Wooyoung’s isn’t even halfway finished. Seonghwa-hyung’s hair isn’t that messed up, so it won’t take you that long to finish it and help San. I can do Wooyoung’s. I know how to.”

Catching his drift, she still looks hesitant but hands the comb and hair straightener over to him. “Don’t try to fix it if you mess it up more, Mingi.” Except he knows he won’t mess up and the way she says it upsets him, like she’s talking down to him, and he feels like a kid again, listening to the older female trainees boss him around. He turns furiously, face red, to Wooyoung and moves to stand behind the chair he’s sitting in.

Wooyoung looks at him in the mirror, eyes amused and curious and full of something else Mingi’s never seen before, and his heart leaps in his chest. Mingi’s sure the stylists don’t feel like they’re going to fall apart when Wooyoung looks at them and he’s definitely sure that their chins don’t wobble and their hands don’t shake when they’re close to him—unless they had a crush, which he did not have. He swallows thickly and gets to work, meticulously straightening every strand back into place as quickly as he can while using the comb to help guide the straightener along.

“Don’t burn my scalp. I won’t hate you, but I’ll spank you.”

Mingi laughs quietly to cover up the fact that he’s nervous. He has to keep glancing in the mirror to make sure he’s doing a good job, so he avoids looking into Wooyoung’s eyes. When he’s finished, he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and puts down the hairspray in his hand. Wooyoung grins at himself in the mirror. “You did so freaking good, Mingi!” His smile makes Mingi feel a little faint and he blushes, awkwardly stepping around Wooyoung to put the hair straightener away. “What would we ever do without you?”

“Oh, fuck!” A noona cries, “Yunho, I forgot about your makeup and pants!”

“I can help!” Mingi blurts before he can stop himself even though he has no idea how to do makeup. Everyone looks at him again and he takes a deep breath, unwilling to let himself get embarrassed this time. “I can do his makeup.”

This time, she doesn’t give him a funny look. Maybe it’s because she sees how well he did with Wooyoung’s hair that she trusts him this time. Yunho sits down and while Hongjoong works at sewing his pants back up, Mingi comes to side and looks at all the makeup on the table with wide eyes. There’s a lot, and he doesn’t know where to begin. “Mingi, you don’t have to do this...” Yunho says.

“I can do it.” Mingi snaps back as he opens a pack of makeup wipes and turns to wipe the smudged makeup from Yunho’s face. “Don’t tell me what to do, Jeong.” Maybe he’s a little upset at Yunho for not spending much time with him anymore. Hongjoong makes a disapproving noise below them from where he’s crouched at Yunho’s leg. “Sorry.”

Cupping Yunho’s cheek in hand, Mingi lifts a miraculously steady hand and begins to re-apply his eyeliner. How hard can it be? He’d watched the stylists do it a lot, and he’d helped his mom with her makeup once too. Behind him, someone calls out, “Five minutes!”

It takes only three minutes for Mingi to re-apply all of Yunho’s makeup, and when he’s done, he’s surprised that it looks _good_. Doing makeup isn’t all that different from drawing, he decides. Yunho gives him a grateful smile, “Thank you. You did good, Minnie.” Mingi’s heart jumps again, and he feels a little queasy, and he just can’t be mad at Yunho anymore. Not when he’s smiling like that at him and his eyes are sparkling. When had his eyes started sparkling?

The recording goes amazingly well, much to everyone’s relief, and Mingi feels proud of himself again. Naturally, as their journey continues, there are many more hair and makeup problems and the stylists eventually accept Mingi as part of their team and start asking him to help out. Mingi doesn’t try to hide that he’s good at doing hair and makeup, because those skills have proven to be helpful, but he keeps it a secret that he actually really loves doing it. Maybe he wouldn’t have kept that part a secret if the members didn’t comment, “You don’t have to do this, Mingi.”, every time he got ready to go to work.

Another thing he keeps a secret is that he loves the familiar, steady weight of a straightener or makeup brush in his hand and that when he does their makeup, he takes a little too much pleasure in the fact that he gets to touch their faces all he wants to. He gets to run his fingers over their soft skin and touch their pretty lips and allow himself to admire every little bit of what makes them unique, and he only needs the excuse that he’s doing their makeup. Mingi keeps it a secret that they make him feel a type of way that was different from the way brothers should make him feel. He knows it’s wrong.

* * *

Mingi had always known his members were good looking. They were idols, and no matter how much it was about the art for them, looks would always matter and it was something they’d all learned to accept. When they’d still been trainees, he’d often thought about Seonghwa’s perfectly shaped lips and pretty, straight teeth, Hongjoong’s pointy nose and long eyelashes, and Yeosang’s fairy-like visuals and the birthmark near his eye that Mingi’d thought was beautiful. He’d caught himself staring at the mole on Jongho’s neck or looking at the mole on Wooyoung’s lower lip for a little too long. San’s freckled neck had proven to be an interesting distraction when meetings or Hongjoong’s lectures went on too long. With Yunho, things had been a little different. Mingi had started to notice things about him that he hadn’t in their previous years of friendship; things like how his eyes sparkled like the stars when he got happy, or how strange it made him feel to see Yunho’s displays of duality when they trained.

His mother had quickly crushed those thoughts after he’d confided in her about them and, frightened, said he thought he might be gay.

-

_“I think I like them.” He whispered, lips pursing together in a thin line. “As more than just friends, more than brothers. My heart beats fast when I look at them and I want to hold their hands all the time. I feel like I’m going to die when they smile at me... Remember when you told me about how you felt when you and appa were falling in love? The butterflies, the tingly light feeling, and it felt like your heart was growing so big, you weren’t sure it would be able to fit inside your chest anymore? That’s how I feel about them, eomma.”_

_His entire body jerked in surprise when she turned on her heel, face screwed up in disgust and eyes cold and harsh. The hand holding her wooden cooking spoon cracked down on his head before he could register what was happening and ignoring his cry of pain, “You don’t know what that feeling is! Liking one man is bad enough, but seven? What would they think of you? I didn’t raise you like this. Don’t you care about me?”_

_“Eomma! Of course I care about you,” And his voice had cracked horribly, and he hated that he sounded fifteen again, and that tears were spilling down his cheeks and into his mouth. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad anymore. Please.” Her face softened. She sighed heavily. Mingi flinched as she moved closer, and he burst into sobs when she pulled him into a hug, pressing kisses into his scalp where she’d hit him._

_“It’s alright. It’s alright, you’re just confused, Mingi. You like girls. You always have. You just got a little confused.” She repeated over and over as she rocked him. Her hands felt like fire on his skin, but she was his mother and he craved her love and approval all the same._

-

And there’d been the time before that when he came home crying to his dad because some girls called him gay for wanting to be an idol. His dad comforted him and told him that wanting to be an idol didn’t make him _that._ Mingi wasn’t gay, his dad said, so he shouldn’t worry. He didn’t say it maliciously or sound cruel or hateful, but it was clear that his dad had his mind made up about what Mingi was. After that, he’d regarded his members with disinterest. He ignored the fact that it was their smiles that made him feel fuzzy and light-headed. It grew easier to pretend that girls interested him and after a while, he’d managed to convince himself that he felt the same fuzzy, light-headedness when they smiled at him.

But that had been when they were trainees. Now, with their first world tour coming to a close, Mingi found it impossible to pretend when he’d grown up a lot since they were trainees and watched them grow up too. They’d been groomed to absolute perfection visually and most of them had been working out and dieting so often now that it came as natural as breathing, and now not wearing makeup made them feel like they were the Emperor in his new clothes.

All eight of them were attractive simply because they had no choice but to be. They could pretend it was about the art and reaching people with their music, refreshing the industry or whatever, sure, but they’d all quietly accepted that looks do matter and that if they didn’t look the way they did, they wouldn’t be much. Mingi had watched each of his members mature and grow into their bodies, himself too, and seen more than a few fans shitpost about how attractive they were. It was because of that he took great pride in his thick thighs. Hongjoong read tweets the most often but Mingi liked to check sometimes too and he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t looked at his members and thought that maybe ATINY had a point. And as was well known, he’d never lied since he was born.

Reminding himself that he liked girls didn’t seem to be enough these days when it wasn’t just his member’s devastatingly pretty faces that made him attracted to them, though the more he thought about it, the more uneasy it made him. Mingi’s closer to his members than his own mother and father. It was his hyungs (and sometimes dongsaengs) who had raised him, taught him, and he knows each of them so intimately, it made him worry at times that perhaps they’re too close.

There hadn’t ever been real boundaries between any of them in terms of affection. Growing up with each other, sharing rooms (sometimes beds), and essentially being forced to rely on each other to survive the harsh world that was the K-Pop industry, affection and intimacy between them wasn’t only normal, it was a necessity. This relationship, whatever it was, part familial and part something else, had always seemed to be tinged with something more intimate and intense that Mingi would rather not put a name to.

ATINY had their ships within the group, and it was something they could all usually laugh about. Sometimes, ATINY were a bit too spot on though and on those days, it was harder for Mingi because they weren’t wrong. The kisses, hugs, and flirtatious behaviour crossed the friendship/familial boundary and the ass slapping wasn’t ever entirely innocent, on or off-camera. It wasn’t for Mingi, and he knew it wasn’t for the other members either, if their harsh, trembling breaths and quiet moans behind closed doors when they thought the others couldn’t hear them, wasn’t proof enough. Someone always heard, but none of them said anything. It’s not their place to judge when they do the same thing. Feel the same thing.

Somehow, the affection not being forced by the company makes it harder. Muting words and phrases on Twitter is easy when they wanted to avoid the more _passionate_ fans (though sometimes Mingi finds himself deleting them for a bit to see just what people might be saying) but you couldn’t exactly do that with your feelings for someone. In this case, seven someones. Replaying his mother’s words in his head only made him feel worse, and he couldn’t understand why.

It keeps Mingi up at night, the struggle between the familial love he _should_ feel for his members, a love that should be purely innocent (and mostly was), but was tainted by his confusion. Perhaps it’s impossible for Mingi not to fall in love with his members, after all, he knows them too well, too intimately; he’s seen them naked, he knows their parents and they know his, he’s seen them so sick that they nearly look dead, he’s seen them cry, and he loves them too deeply not to. He decides that his feelings mean nothing and that they won’t, not now, not ever, because it’s easier that way.

With a heavy sigh, he sinks into the seat between Seonghwa and Hongjoong and turns on his side, pressing his cheek against Seonghwa’s bicep. They were all tired, yet still buzzing from the aftermaths of a wonderful concert, but Mingi still had enough energy to make some demands. “Hyungie,” He breathes in a whiny tone, “Can I sleep with you and Hongjoong hyung tonight?”

“Ah, my Minmin, are you being clingy with hyungs now?” Seonghwa teases, eyes drifting from his phone down to Mingi’s face. His lips stretched into one of his pretty smiles make Mingi feel queasy, and he squeezes his eyes shut. ‘ _It’s alright, you’re just confused, Mingi._ ‘, he hears in his head.

“Please.” He squeaks, slipping his arm under Seonghwa’s and wrapping it around the limb. “Wanna be close. Need it.”

Seonghwa makes a pitiful little noise, eyebrows furrowing and lips falling into a frown. He glances at Hongjoong, mouths, ‘Should we?’, and gives Mingi a pointed glance. Hongjoong nods a little and mouths back, ‘Let him.’ With a nod, Seonghwa returns his attention to Mingi, “You can sleep with hyungs.” It seems like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t.

When they get to the hotel, they all go to their rooms after goodnight hugs and a kiss to the cheek on Wooyoung’s part. Mingi goes with Seonghwa and Hongjoong to their room and takes his shower last because of ‘hyung privileges’ or whatever.

While the water is running, getting hot, Mingi pauses in front of the mirror. He’s still got his makeup on from the concert and even though it’s a little smudged from sweat, he thinks he still looks good. Pretty, even. “I look pretty,” He whispers, as if realizing this for the first time. Now that he was here, he realized that he’d never bothered looking at himself when he had his makeup on. Sure, he looked in the mirror, but he never _looked._

He tilts and turns his head, pink lips poked out in a pout, playing around with a few different angles and what he hopes are cute facial expressions. His jawline is slightly more defined than it is without makeup, and the tip of his nose shines a bit from the highlighter, but he thinks his eyes are the selling point. It’s subtle, but the peachy-coloured eyeshadow with bits of glitter on his eyelids makes him feel like a princess. It’s a thought that makes his heart feel the way it feels when he thinks of his members. His stomach churns in a good way. A tiny laugh leaves his lips, and he stands there a few moments longer, smiling and giggling at himself in the mirror.

Mingi wishes that he could look like this all the time, and if he didn’t have to go to bed, he would have left the makeup on if only to feel like this for a little longer. The other members, except maybe Seonghwa, Hongjoong, and Jongho, would have teased him for it—they were always happy to take theirs off—but they teased him all the time anyway so Mingi couldn’t bring himself to think that he’d care. Mingi did a lot of things that the others never understood so it wasn’t like he’d need to explain himself, he never did usually.

For some reason though, a dark feeling settles in a thick cloud over him at the thought and suddenly, he doesn’t feel that pretty anymore. He gets into the shower and scrubs furiously at his face until the skin is raw and red. The stylists are going to scold him tomorrow, but he doesn’t care. His skin tingles and burns as he steps out of the shower and dries himself off with a towel Seonghwa brought because he didn’t like any of them using shitty hotel towels. He pulls on his underwear and a shirt he’d borrowed from Seonghwa.

When he looks in the mirror again before leaving, he sees the Mingi he knows he’s supposed to be. He clenches his fists and turns off the light.

Climbing into bed between his hyungs, he turns to face Hongjoong, head near the man’s hip. Hongjoong is working as usual, headphones on, and a sleepy look in his eyes. He stops briefly to pet Mingi’s head, nails scratching lightly as his scalp, and Mingi lets his eyes close, a content whimper falling from his lips. Seonghwa’s lithe body settles behind him, chest pressed to his back and an arm wrapping around his waist. “What were you laughing about in there, Minmin?”

He thinks he feels Seonghwa’s fingers trail down, drawing patterns on his naked thigh. Mingi swallows. “Nothing, hyung.”

* * *

Dropping the plastic bag at the foot of his bed, Mingi sits down at the opposite end. He crosses his legs and stares at the bag like it’s a wild animal. Everyone was out for the day. Hongjoong was at the studio, Seonghwa was grocery shopping, and Yunho had taken the others to a musical festival. Their tour had ended less than two weeks ago, and the festival had started while they were still on tour. Today was the last day, so Yunho had said he wasn’t going to miss it.

Mingi went to Dongdaemun Market with the intention of buying some new art supplies and whatever other trinkets that sparked his joy. He’s not sure when the phrase entered his vocabulary, but Seonghwa had been watching a lot of Marie Kondo out loud lately, and it made Mingi feel a little happier every time he heard the words. He had bought his art supplies, and he’d put those away later, but he’d also bought makeup.

It scared him a little that he’d stepped into the small makeup shop so confidently and made his way through the aisles, looking over eyeshadow palettes, brushes, mascaras, and eyeliners among other things. What scared him even more was how he’d meticulously and successfully colour-matched his foundation and concealer, how he had been able to choose palettes with shades he knew would compliment him well, and knew exactly which brushes were the best to buy. It all felt like an elaborate plan on his subconscious mind’s part that he’d had no idea about until after it’d come into fruition. Suddenly, the hours he’d spent watching meejmuse, Sunny’s Channel, and James Charles (the latter of which he often didn’t understand because he spoke too fast but found enjoyable anyway) made sense. The looking up makeup products and reading hundreds of reviews and looking at makeup artists on his secret Instagram made sense. All of it had led to this moment.

Dozens of swatches still stained his left hand, and Mingi swallows hard. He knew he wouldn’t be doing this if everyone was home. He felt like he was sneaking behind their backs and doing something scandalous. Scandalous, that’s what this would be if anyone got word of it. Mingi was a confident person, but he wasn’t like Holland, whom he envied very much in more than one way, because _he_ wasn’t afraid to be who he really was.

He stuffs the bag in the space behind his stuffed animals and slid under his blankets to sleep instead.

Mingi doesn’t have the courage to look inside the bag again after that. He only touches it again to move it into a better hiding spot because Wooyoung and San were nosy little shits and would likely find it and start a whole thing about Mingi and his makeup. He knew Seonghwa and Hongjoong wouldn’t let it go too far, but he still didn’t want to deal with the embarrassment of having to tell them he wanted to feel like he had that night at the hotel. He wanted to feel pretty again.

The makeup goes untouched until October, when he has nothing to do because he just had to go and injure himself. He has to stay at home while the others carry out their schedules, and it upsets him and makes him sad. Mingi feels useless and guilty because he isn’t out there, doing his fucking job. A manager offers to stay at the dorm to keep him company, but Mingi refuses. Just because he can’t do his job doesn’t mean he gets to keep someone else from doing theirs. He wants to be alone, so if (when) he cries, no one will see it. It’s not exactly a secret that he likes to hide his feelings most of the time. It was hard to open up about how you felt when you didn’t even know how you felt. All of it, every emotion, swirled together inside of him until it became so muddled, he couldn’t tell whether he wanted to laugh or punch a hole in the wall.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can, okay? Don’t move around too much, and if you need anything, don’t be afraid to call one of the managers.” Hongjoong had reminded Mingi while Seonghwa fretted over him, making sure he was comfortable on the couch. Then the leader had added, with a pointed look, like he knew exactly what Mingi was thinking, “You will not be a burden. Understand me?”

He’d said he understood, and it was the first time he’d lied since he’d been born. It hurt to look into Hongjoong’s eyes and tell him that he understood him when he didn’t. He did feel like a burden. If he wasn’t doing his part, pulling his weight, then what was the point? Why was he even there? The worst part was Mingi was sure no one would care about his absence, and if they did, it wouldn’t be for very long. Just like back in gym class, he wasn’t an asset to have on the team. What he’d forgotten was that he wasn’t so bad to have either.

The horrifying realization had dawned on him while he was laying down, staring at the ceiling. ATEEZ didn’t need him as a rapper; they had Hongjoong and Seonghwa was supposed to have been a rapper anyway. Yunho was perfectly capable of being the main dancer, and if he wasn’t, then Wooyoung was. Hell, San could be the main dancer. Hongjoong could produce and write lyrics, and San could too with more practice. They didn’t need Mingi to do their makeup, that’s what they had stylists for. Everything Mingi did, there was someone else who could do it just as well, if not better.

Hours later, when he finally gets up from the couch, eyes puffy and red from crying himself to sleep, everything still hurts. He drags himself to the bathroom because his bladder is killing him and his head is pounding.

Mingi pauses when he opens the medicine cabinet and swallows when the first place his eyes drift is up to the package of razors. It’s a fleeting thought that he shoves down as he grabs a bottle of extra strength Aspirin and forces three down his throat. His mind plays back Yunho screaming at him back in highschool, “Why didn’t you come to me?”, hands shaking and eyes watering as he tried to bandage Mingi’s thighs. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, do that to Yunho. Not again. He couldn’t do that to the others either.

His next thought when he can think through the haze in his head is that maybe he could mess around with his makeup now that he’s alone. No one would be home for hours, after all.

Retrieving the bag of makeup from the corner under his bed is mildly straining on his back, but he manages. With a jar of Tiger Balm in one hand and the bag in the other, he makes his way back to the living room. While Mingi had done makeup plenty of times, he’d never actually done it on himself. When he did it on the others, it was always looks the stylists chose, so he’d also never gotten to experiment and try something new. Time to change that, he decides. It’s positively sinful the way it makes him feel when he dumps the contents of the plastic out on the table they use for meals when he gets into the living room and he finally gets to look at it all.

Having a makeup brush in his hand after so long calms any anxiety he’d been feeling. He fucks around for a while, following a few tutorials on his phone while using Jongho’s iPad camera as a mirror. Mingi quickly finds American makeup is a lot, and while it’s nice, he doesn’t like it very much on himself. He feels a bit silly but still thinks it’s fun to use the bolder, brighter colours even though he’d never do his makeup like this (the bold lip colours are sort of okay though, so he decides he’ll play around with that when he can—when!). Eventually, he ventures back to the Korean side of makeup channels and watches a few videos before he feels ready enough to do something on his own. His only thought is that he wants to feel pretty again. He needed it.

Mingi gravitates to a palette full of soft pinks, reds, blues, and yellows. Most of them are matte but a few have glitter and the latter are what he decides to use, remembering how pretty he’d looked back in March. “You can do this,” He murmurs to himself as he wipes his face clean, he’d rather not get scolded for breaking out again, and takes a deep, grounding breath. “Just pretend it’s not you.”

He chooses a pastel, glittery pink for his eyelids and, _oh_ , it’s so, so pretty and the formula—which he only knows a little something-something about because of James Charles—must be amazing because it feels like cream going on. A complimentary shade of pastel blue that has just a bit of sparkle to it goes under his eyes. Mingi takes great pride in the minimum amount of fallout. Wooyoung liked to tease that Mingi was like a bird, intrigued by shiny things, and Mingi had pouted over that because _not true_ but in finding a highlighter he liked, he’d understood. He had found the most blinding one the store had, and the swatch he’d done still lingered after he’d washed his hands six times.

A bit goes on the inner corner of his eyes and a little on the tip of his nose because that had looked pretty last time too. He ends up having to watch a tutorial to get the contour on his jaw just right and succeeds after the second try, to his delight. After that, it’s just a matter of putting glittery pink lip tint, using some blush, applying some brown coloured mascara—because it was softer than black—and finally, some setting spray to finish up because he’d be damned if he fucked his hard work up.

He squeezes his eyes shut, and leans back against the couch with a heavy sigh. One eye pokes open, peering at his reflection on the iPad screen and he nearly bursts into sobs, but doesn’t because he’d just finished, dammit. Mingi looks, _feels_ , pretty. And he’d been so sure he’d never feel that again.

Hongjoong texts him in the group chat at that moment, a simple, ‘ _Are you okay? We’ll be home in a few hours. I hope you aren’t too bored without us! Dinner’s your pick. ♡_ ‘ Mingi’s not sure what compels him to do so but he takes a selca, lips poked into a pout and a finger heart held up to the camera.

He texts back, ‘ _i’m okay. not bored, miss you all though :(_ ‘, and sends his selca right after. He follows up with, ‘ _let’s have sushi tonight. pls_ ‘ and drops his phone onto the table, teeth worrying at his inner cheek while he waits for a response.

All of them start typing and the little bubble with dots sits there for nearly thirty seconds and Mingi gets worried that maybe this was all a mistake and he shouldn’t have ever done this and now they were all going to think—

San’s text comes in first, ‘ _mingi,,, you look so pretty???? what the fuck?????_ ‘ and Wooyoung follows up with, ‘ _SJJFIDIDOEBFHEIOSUFF MINGI WHAT??? THE??? FUCK??? WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE ALLOWED TO LOOK THAT BEAUTIFUL?? im biting the HELL out of your ass when i get home you fucking bitch ://_ ‘. Mingi feels relieved and he laughs, hands clutched over his chest.

‘ _You look like nice_ ‘ is all he gets from Jongho in the group chat but the younger immediately sends a text privately that says, ‘ _You look pretty, Min._ _Our pretty Princess Minki ♡_ ‘ and that makes his cheeks burn underneath the soft layer of blush on his cheeks.

Yunho just sends four shocked emojis followed by a heart eye emoji and then simply says, ‘ _im dead !! bye. nice knowing u all, play illusion at my funeral_ ‘. Seonghwa, in the most Seonghwa possible, says, ‘ _You did a wonderful job, Minmin! Very pretty. You look like a princess._ ‘ Hongjoong sends three squirt emojis and the flushed face emoji. Mingi’s slightly concerned about the implications of that when Yeosang catches them all off guard.

‘ _10/10 would fuck your face._ ‘ and right after, ‘ _yk if you consent and all that- anyway i’ll be kissing you when i get home_ ‘.

Chaos ensues in the chat after, Mingi only able to send keyboard smashes and ‘ _pls shut up_ ‘ along with plead face emojis when they compliment him so much, his neck is painted in bright red splotches and his ears are red from blushing so hard.

When Wooyoung asks if Mingi would do his makeup sometime, ‘ _you know, when we don’t have schedules_ ‘, he wonders why he’d ever been so worried about what they would think of him. They were his family and they loved him, nevermind that he loved them a little too much, so of course they would have accepted and supported him. Isn’t that what families did? A little voice in the back of his mind offers the suggestion that maybe he feared them reacting like his mother did a little less than a year ago. The thought shakes him and he shivers before allowing himself to be pulled back into texting the others in between their work until they’re on their way back to the dorm.

Wooyoung does bite him. Yeosang does kiss him — on the cheek. He’s a little disappointed but doesn’t show it, instead he glows under their praise and compliments.

* * *

After that day, Mingi feels much freer. He wears his makeup around the dorm more often, even does Wooyoung and San’s sometimes. Jongho lets him do it once, but hadn’t again because he said he preferred to see it on Mingi and the others. That definitely didn’t make him blush.

It being a new year, a lot more growing had been going on, so much that it made his head spin. It was like everyone had collectively decided to grow ten times hotter and not fucking tell him about it. He avoids them like the plague, terrified he might say something stupid or accidentally admit something he’d rather not.

“Mingi, can I talk to you?” Yeosang asks from the doorway. Mingi freezes, glancing up at the man from under mascara-heavy lashes. He turns off his phone and drops it onto the bed next to him.

“I... um— of course, hyung. What’s wrong?”

Yeosang licks his lips and Mingi feels very small under his intense gaze. His eyes flicker over to Jongho and Wooyoung, who were busy napping before he returns his gaze to Mingi. “Come to my room?”

Mingi gets up, stumbling a bit, and follows Yeosang down the hall to his room. Yeosang closes the door and locks it, and the younger gets nervous, “Um.. hyung? What’s this about?”

“Sit down.” He motions to his bed with a wave of his hand and Mingi rushes to obey. Yeosang seems like he wants to laugh, eyes sparkling with amusement. The older takes a seat in the computer chair and leans back, legs wide open. “Is something wrong?”

Forcing his eyes to look anywhere but down, the rapper’s gaze falls on Yeosang’s neck. His long, pretty neck. He shakes the thought away with a sharp inhale. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been avoiding me. You’ve been avoiding all of us.” His voice is firm, but gentle and nonaccusatory. “Everyone keeps saying to give you space, but frankly, I’m tired of your bullshit. Did we do something? Because if we did, you need to tell us, not avoid us. You’re lucky I’m the one who decided to talk to you ‘cause Hongjoong’s getting fed up with you running off all the time, and Seonghwa’s just about ready to strangle it out of you.”

“No!” Mingi squeaks louder than intended. “I— you didn’t. I’m just— I—” His brain malfunctions and he swears the whole dorm can hear the Windows shut down sound. Tears well up in his eyes and he looks up, blinking his eyes furiously. In the most pitiful way possible, he whimpers, “Hyungie.”

There’s a long silence and a ball of fear settles in the pit of Mingi’s stomach. He feels like puking. “Come to hyung, Minmin.” Yeosang finally says and when Mingi looks at him, he’s got his arms held out and a gentle smile on his face.

The younger scrambles into Yeosang’s lap, thighs resting on either side of Yeosang’s hips. Yeosang’s hands fall to Mingi’s waist and he squeezes firm enough to ground him. “Look at me, Minmin.. Talk to hyung, baby, please? Hyung wants to help and he can’t if you don’t tell him what’s wrong.”

“I...” The words get caught in his throat and Mingi’s hears his mother’s words in his head again and they sound louder than they’d ever had before. Yeosang dandles him on his knees and his nails dig into the flesh of Mingi’s hips. The pain brings him back, and he shivers, leaning forward to lay his head against Yeosang’s chest, which is only slightly awkward because of the height difference. “Hyungie... I like you.” He spits out, before he corrects himself because ‘like’ isn’t a strong enough word, “ _Love_ you. All seven of you.” Love doesn’t feel like a strong enough word either, but it’s all his rat-infested mind can think of.

Yeosang’s breath hitches and Mingi squeezes his eyes shut, focusing on Yeosang’s heartbeat. Why was it so fast? “Oh, Minnie... my silly Minnie,” his hyung breathes, hands lifting to push Mingi back and cup his cheeks. They stare at each other for a moment, Yeosang’s smiling at him and it’s so pretty that he can only whimper. “That’s what this was all about? Baby— Minnie, Princess, we _know_.”

He’s mortified. “You _knew_?”

“You weren’t very secretive about it.” His hyung murmurs, thumb moving to brush over his lower lip. “We weren’t either. We thought you knew too. We’ve never been exactly platonic, sweetheart.”

“I thought you were being nice! I didn’t... I didn’t think that you ever could have...”

“You’re silly. Can I kiss you?” Yeosang leans forward, one hand sliding to hold the back of Mingi’s neck. Mingi hesitates, but he nods his head a little, afraid his voice may betray him, and Yeosang lifts an eyebrow, “I need you to use your words, princess. Be a good boy for hyung.”

Mingi wants to say yes. Yeosang is here, offering the one thing he’d been craving since the day they’d met. Mingi wants Yeosang to kiss him until he can hardly breathe and his lips are wet and swollen. He thinks back to what Yeosang had texted last October. He’d been too frightened to look up what _that_ had meant, but he’d decided that he would do anything with Yeosang if he asked. He trusted him like he trusted all of his members. They were his family and speaking of his family, another thought comes to mind. “My eomma’s going to hate me.”

“Fuck your eomma. We have Seonghwa. Can I kiss you?”

Yeosang says it so easily, so firmly, that Mingi can’t help but think, _Yeah, fuck my eomma_. “Kiss me?”

Yeosang’s hands are rough, pulling Mingi as close as he can get him, and then one snakes up to grip his chin, tugging his face closer. Mingi lets him take control because one, he’d never kissed anyone before, and two, he preferred it that way, having someone guide him. And, boy, does Yeosang kiss him. Yeosang presses his lips against Mingi’s and it starts out as a sweet kiss, a kiss almost as shy as Yeosang was sometimes, but then Yeosang flicks his tongue out across Mingi’s bottom lip and Mingi lets out a needy little whine.

With a grin against his lips, the gentle prodding turns demanding and Yeosang sort of eases Mingi’s mouth open, and Mingi sighs hot and heavy when he finally pushes his tongue in. Mingi shudders violently, eagerly leaning into Yeosang’s body and feels his hyung’s hands all over him, sliding up his tummy and towards his back, feels them run down his thighs and squeeze hard enough that Mingi’s sure that there’d be bruises later on.

Mingi’s head spins and he whimpers as their tongues slide together. It’s so hot and his toes curl, and he tries to very hard to keep up as the older man pulls him even closer and presses up against him hard. Blindly, he searches for Yeosang’s hands and when he finds them; he takes them in his own and laces their fingers together. It keeps him from floating off too far, brings him back down, and he sighs through his nose. Eventually, they pull apart, but not before Yeosang nips at his lower lip, making tinges of pleasure shoot down his spine. A thin line of spit connects their lips and Yeosang breathes heavily, hot puffs of air falling against Mingi’s cheeks.

There’s a comfortable silence between them, filled only by their breathing, and Mingi drops his head to let his forehead rest against his hyung’s. His voice comes out rough and a bit breathless, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Yeosang grins and his eyes lazily roam over Mingi’s flushed face and swollen pink lips. Whatever lipstick he’d been wearing had gotten smudged, but Yeosang thought he looked pretty all the same. “Only if I get to be the big spoon. And if you wear that cute sweater I got you for your birthday.”

“Okay,” Mingi replies in a small voice. “And can we kiss more? Please, hyung?”

“You’re so cute. My Minmin.” Yeosang mumbles, leaning up to press a quick kiss to his lips. “I can never say no to you, you know that?”

* * *

Hongjoong is sitting on the floor of his and Seonghwa’s bedroom, sorting through his polishes and organizing them by colour (at Seonghwa’s request) when Mingi comes knocking at his door.

“Come in,” he calls, squinting at two very similar shades of red. Mingi shuffles in quietly, wrapped up in Yunho’s sweater, the one he’d worn in Illusion, and nothing else. He flops down next to him with a soft thump.

“What’re you doing?”

“Seonghwa said I had to organize my nail polish, or else he’s gonna mix them all together into something ungodly and set it ablaze next time we go to his eomma’s.” He holds the colours out to Mingi, “Which one is darker?”

Mingi scoots a little closer and curls in on himself so he can comfortably lay his head on Hongjoong’s shoulder. He points at the one on the left, which is cherry coloured, after a quick glance and Hongjoong mutters a thanks.

“You painted Yunho’s nails.” Mingi pouts. “Can you paint mine too?”

Technically, he’d only painted Yunho’s pinky and that’d been a while ago, but more recently, Yunho had happily been sporting bright blue and yellow nails and showing them off with a goofy grin every chance he got. Mingi wanted his nails to be pretty too. If they were still trainees, or if this had been before Mingi started wearing makeup, he’s sure Hongjoong would have looked at him funny. The leader smiles, “Sure, Min. What colours do you want? Do you want it to match your makeup?”

He shakes his head and slaps his sweater paws against Hongjoong’s cheek. “Uh-uh. I’m gonna do something different tomorrow so I want black. Seonghwa-hyung said black goes with everything.”

“Seonghwa is an emo bitch who listens to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge at full volume to fall asleep.” Hongjoong retorts, picking through several shades of black nail polish and retrieving the darkest one he owned. It was nearly empty (because of Seonghwa), and he tapped it against his palm a few times as he turned to face Mingi. “Don't tell him I said that. Yeosang told me he talked to you yesterday.” He pats his thigh lightly, a sign for Mingi to lay a hand there and the younger listens, large hand falling on the leader’s thigh.

“Yeah...” Mingi blushes, lifting his free hand to his lips and rubbing his fingers against them. After Yeosang agreed to let him sleep with him that night, Mingi had gone to shower and take off his makeup, put on his pink sweater and rushed back to Yeosang’s room and quite literally dove into his bed. True to his word, they’d kissed a lot more until Yeosang said they had to go to sleep or ‘Hongjoong will beat our asses’. It felt nice to be in his hyung’s arms and not feel guilty about it. “You all really knew?”

Hongjoong giggles, taking Mingi’s hand in his and moving it around as he needed. “I knew since before our debut. Seonghwa too. Everyone else sort of figured it out from there. That you liked us and that we all liked each other, I mean. We thought you knew, so we didn’t feel the need to actually bring it up. I guess we sort of collectively agreed we were a thing, but we should have talked about it. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t tell Hwa I said this, but it’s okay. I should’ve confessed sooner. I was just scared,” Mingi admits with a sigh. “I didn’t want to admit it to myself. My eomma and appa... you know.”

“I know,” Hongjoong squeezes his hand lightly and then sets it aside to dry. Mingi surrenders his other hand and watches him work this time. Hongjoong’s really good at painting nails. He doesn’t even mess up once, and that makes Mingi a little jealous because the one time he tried in secret, he’d gotten it everywhere but his nails. “Don’t worry about them. They don’t know you like we do. And it’s not your fault that they won’t be able to accept you if you decide to tell them.”

A disgusted noise falls from his lips before Mingi can stop it. The thought of telling his parents terrifies him. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what they might say or do. “I’m not going to. It’s not their business. Besides, I’d feel stupid coming out. I’d rather just not say anything. That’s okay, right, hyung?”

The leader looks up at him and smiles. 

Mingi stops himself from shrinking back because, yeah, they must have all collectively agreed to get more attractive and not tell him about it. “Of course it is. Look, your queerness is not dependent on whether people know or not. Coming out isn’t a rite of passage or some shit that magically validates your queerness. You’re already so fucking valid, Mingi. All of us are. It’s not a rule that you have to come out, and it’s not something you absolutely have to adhere to just because everyone else is doing it.”

Hearing Hongjoong’s words reminds Mingi of just how smart his hyung is. “I feel like if I don’t, I hate myself or... or like I’m ashamed of who I am.” Which he had been, but not so much anymore.

“I know.” Hongjoong lifts Mingi’s hand to his lips and blows on his pinky nail to dry it a little faster and then closes his bottle of polish and sets it back with the other shades of black. Mingi scoots closer and climbs into Hongjoong’s lap, even though he knows he’s too big for that. The leader doesn’t seem to mind though, and he wraps his arms around Mingi, holding him close. “And I wish that people didn’t think you need to be out to be seen as proud and authentic. But Mingi, we’re _safe_ here. We’re home. Right here, with each other, we’re away from the rest of the world, and only our rules matter. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m out to the people who matter to me and I’m proud of it. Okay?”

Mingi’s lips purse a few times, nostrils flaring as he tries to keep himself from crying. Seonghwa had called him pretty and kissed his forehead that morning when he saw his makeup, so he’d really rather not mess it up. “‘Kay,” He chokes out, teeth worrying at his strawberry flavoured lips. “Hyung?”

“Hm?”

The younger leans in, voice dropping to a whisper, “I love you.” He says it like it’s a secret and it makes Hongjoong laugh out loud before he dives forward to press a dozen kisses to Mingi’s lips and chin.

“I love you too, Minmin.” And Mingi feels like a Mingi who finally gets himself.


End file.
